Christmas baking
by Rose-Aki
Summary: Temari tries to bake for Christmas. This time Shikamaru might be right when he says that it's going to be troublesome. Temari/Shikamaru


A/N: I had this idea a few days ago while baking. Funny enough the same things that are happening to Temari happened to me. Let's just say Temari and I share the lack of talent in baking. Hope you enjoy my Christmas one-shot :)

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A few years back Temari never would have thought that she would stand in a kitchen and bake, but quite a few things had changed. Half a year ago, after the war had ended, she had moved in with Shikamaru and the next day would mark their first Christmas together. Never before had Temari baked. Sure, she had cooked for Gaara and Kankuro, but baking was something she never bothered with. However this Christmas was special, so she decided to give baking a try. Her mother never had the chance to teach her, so the recipe Yoshino gave her was all the help she would get. Before Temari could get a look at the recipe Shikamaru entered the kitchen.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to bake." She said proudly, smirking at him.

"And you're sure that's a good idea?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Temari challenged, a hand on her hip.

"Nothing. I'll just go meet Choji until you're done." He raised a hand in goodbye.

Temari could swear that she heard him mumble a 'troublesome' before the front door closed behind him. Shaking her head, she was even more determined to succeed with this. She would show him that she was perfectly capable of doing this. What should be troublesome about making cookies? Little did Temari know that Shikamaru would be right and baking was indeed very troublesome.

Determined to prove Shikamaru wrong she read the recipe she got from Yoshino and got the mixing bowl out. It didn't look that difficult to do. First she put the butter, which she got out of the fridge and which was still frozen, into the mixing bowl. Then she added flour, eggs and a few other ingredients. Looking at what she accomplished so far, she was proud of herself. Smirking slightly she thought to herself how wrong Shikamaru had been, this was not troublesome at all.

However when she started the mixer the still frozen butter caught in it and the flour and chocolate powder flew through the kitchen like one of her wind attacks. When she finally managed to turn the mixer off her hair and one of the kitchen walls was a light shade of brown. So this was a small setback, but she had always wanted to paint that wall in a darker color anyway, so still not troublesome so far.

Deciding that it was not a good idea to use the mixer again she kneaded the cookie dough with her hands. When after a few seconds she only managed to have more chocolate powder on her hands she knew that she had a problem, this wasn't working. Maybe water would help. So water wasn't an ingredient, but a little creativity couldn't hurt right? After adding half a glass of water Temari thought it was going good, that was until the dough started sticking to her hands and the mixing bowl.

Temari still refused to call this troublesome. So she would just make one big cookie instead of a few little ones. It wasn't easy to get the dough on the baking sheet and convince it to stay there, but in the end she got it. Looking at the clock she saw that Shikamaru would be home soon, so the cookie just had to bake itself faster. If the cookie normally needed an hour in the temperature Yoshino wrote down, it should be done in half an hour if she would just rise the baking temperature. Happy about her brilliant idea she did just that and shoved the baking sheet into the oven.

Sighing deeply she looked around the kitchen. Maybe it would be a good idea to clean up before Shikamaru got home and accused her of being troublesome for ruining the kitchen. The only problem was the chocolate powder all over the wall. After trying to remove it by tapping the wall, then with water and finally making it even worse by rubbing it in even more, she decided to just hang something over it. Hadn't Shikamaru complained that they hadn't enough pictures of them on the walls? Well he would get his wish granted now.

Surprisingly by the time that Shikamaru came home the kitchen looked alright, maybe a little overloaded with pictures on the wall, but other than that you couldn't see that not everything had gone as Temari had planned it.

"How was your meeting with Choji?" She greeted him.

"Good. How was your baking?" Temari saw him look critical through the room before his eyes landed on her.

"Great. I'm just about to get it out of the oven." When she carefully got the baking sheet out she was proud. Okay maybe it was a little burned but nothing that you couldn't be scrape away.

"That's my giant Christmas cookie." She grinned brightly at him."See, I told you it wasn't troublesome at all."

Shikamaru looked at what Temari had called a giant Christmas cookie as if he was expecting it to move, which Temari wasn't sure it wouldn't do.

"Why don't we wait until tomorrow when it's Christmas to eat it." Shikamaru cautiously suggested.

Temari nodded excited, not catching on to the light hint of uncertainty in Shikamaru's voice. The lazy shinobi walked over to his girlfriend and gave her a small kiss. They spent the rest of the evening in peace, Temari being proud of her work and Shikamaru hoping he would survive eating that troublesome cookie tomorrow.

The next morning Temari and Shikamaru went over to Yoshino's house to celebrate Christmas with her. To the surprise of the shinobi Temari's giant Christmas cookie didn't taste half as bad, not good, but it was eatable. Baking wasn't that troublesome. However when Yoshino offered Temari that next year they could bake together, Temari got the feeling that Shikamaru had looked behind the pictures in the kitchen after all.

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A/N: Merry Christmas :)


End file.
